Break the Loop
by shouldabeenadog
Summary: Riku is sealed behind Kingdom Hearts, but he still has more work to do; the worlds are now locked and safe, but what is the cost of safety?
1. Chapter 1

"Take care of her, Sora," Riku said, as the doors of Kingdom Hearts closed on him. He didn't deserve Kairi, not after all he had done to hurt the one she loved.

_Sora, not me._

Riku turned around as the doors closed, and watched as two Darksiders arose from the blackness in the shadows. They began lumbering toward King Mickey, who was using his keyblade to lock the great doors. Riku jumped toward the heartless, buying time for the King to finish. He drew forth his sword, Soul Eater, and charged forward.

Riku laid into the two of them, drawing their focus away from the King and onto him. A mistimed dodge earned him a few broken ribs from the impact of the Darksider's fist. He still held on through the pain, even as it became difficult to draw breath.

_Come on Sora, hurry up. I can't do this forever._

Neo-Shadows began joining the fray, leaping in between the massive strikes of the Darksiders. Riku abandoned all pretense of an offense in favor of blocking and dodging. Another glancing blow from a Darksider and his arm was shattered. The pain and damage seemed to be affecting someone else, someone far away. His connection to his body was fading as his vision grew darker, and blood flowed from the numerous slashes and gouges. He jumped, attacking the Darkisder again. His slashes were erratic, the force behind them pitiful.

**Click**

A distinctive sound pierced the haze, and he heard someone call his name.

And then the haze cleared in an instant. He felt every ripped muscle, every snapped bone, every hole in his skin spilling his blood. Even as he screamed from the pain, he felt his bones return to his insides and re-knit themselves together, his muscles and skin draw closed over the wounds, making him whole again.

If that was what healing magic felt like all the time, Riku was glad he couldn't use it.

He saw the King burst through one of the Darksiders, its corpse falling as Riku stood up. Two more Darksiders began forming, and Riku focused on the sorrow and shame he felt, his anger with himself.

Darkness coalesced in his hands, responding to his emotions, and he pointed it at the Neo-Shadows, bolts of dark energy smashing into them as he charged forward, cutting and blasting the heartless.

They fought together, he and Mickey, for what felt like hours. Their bodies were weary, their magic exhausted, and their wounds multiplying. Their foes were diminishing as well, growing weaker, and attacking in fewer numbers. Victory was in sight, if only they could hold out a bit longer. A low shudder quaked through the ground, and their foes congregated together, merging into one last Darksider.

Riku looked at the King and nodded. They hadn't spoken to each other yet; two warriors struggling against a sea of heartless had no time for words. If it had been Sora, the shared look would have shouted a contest to be the first to bring it down. They were always competing, with Kairi cheering them on, but her smile was always bigger when Sora—

Metal shattered. Heat and lancing pain covered him.

Riku stopped skidding and tumbling a dozen yards away, bits of his now broken sword flecking his skin with shrapnel. The Darksider pulled back its fist to approach and strike him down, and the King took the opportunity to attack, finally cutting through one of the Darksider's arms. The Darksider was fresh, however, and all of the King's skill and grace meant nothing when he had no energy to fight. Riku was still struggling to his feet when the King was sent flying back toward him, his spine bent and his head hanging to the side, his eyes lifeless. His keyblade skidded to a stop a few feet in front of Riku.

The Darksider lumbered toward Riku, its forty-foot frame gaining speed with each step.

With blood leaking from a dozen wounds across his face, neck, and chest, Riku stumbled to Mickey's keyblade, the only weapon left.

He lifted the blade, unable to raise it to its place in his stance. He put a second hand on it and held it low, a tribute to Sora and his ridiculous fighting style—one final tribute before he died.

The beast continued its charge, and Riku rolled out of the way of the giant fist. Gasping for breath, he stumbled drunkenly toward the beast and swung. Again and again he blindly cut, stepping or outright falling to avoid the gigantic swipes. He cut and cut, but finally he couldn't move anymore. He had no more energy to avoid what the creature sent at him.

He collapsed to his hands and knees. Then his arms gave out; he passed out before he hit the ground.

Pressure woke Riku.

Not someone pushing on him, but a strange squeezing sensation, as if he were being pressed on all sides, from within and without.

He opened his eyes to light. It was not blinding, and strangely, seemed to be coming from behind him. Riku stumbled as he rose, the floor sticking to his bloody hands and clothes. Finally, after several minutes of effort, he turned to face the light.

It was a giant white sphere, floating in the void of Kingdom Hearts.

Broken shards of Soul Eater lay around him, the keyblade was still in his hand, and the King's corpse lay in front of him. All that, the doors, and the orb were the only things in the endless expanse of white.

"Hello?" he called out, hoping there was someone else here, someone else with him. Silence and loneliness were the only response.

Then the orb **Pulsed**. The void seemed to become brighter, and the pressure around Riku increased.

_What was that? What is this strange feeling?_

He felt suffused with ideas, half-formed concepts, strange designs and plans. Another [b]Pulse[/b], and the pressure became uncomfortable, the stream of ideas a torrent.

Another **Pulse**, and Riku was done with whatever the orb was trying to do to him. The pressure became a whole-body pain.

"Stop it, now." he commanded the orb. It **Pulsed **again in response, and Riku winced at the vice-like pressure.

He pointed the keyblade, hoping its ancient and arcane magic would stop the orb. But it **Pulsed **again, going faster now.

"Enough!" Riku shouted at it, the pain becoming intolerable. He jumped at it, swinging the keyblade. **Pulse**

The blade passed straight through the orb as if it were nothing, and Riku fell into the luminescence.

He felt, more than saw, the shift in perspective. He felt the pulses become more rapid but less intense, even as he saw the stars, the thousands of other worlds. He felt connected to every world, something profoundly deep and nurturing. The connections were discrete, each one an individual. He felt them dying, withering with decay. The bonds shouted their pain, their need for sustenance.

Riku was confused; a part of him, the part touched by the bonds, wanted to restore them, healing their pain. Another part just wanted it all to stop, to have a minute to collect his thoughts and figure out where he stood. The vast majority of his mind was too busy trying to make sense of the surge of ideas and plans. With every pulse, the ideas came even stronger, the bonds crying for succor, and the pressure grew.

Finally, Riku fell through the orb and the cries of agony dimmed down to echoes, throbbing with each pulse. Kingdom Hearts was now blinding in its brightness. The only dimnesses were the body of the king, the remnants of his sword, and the locked exit doors.

It seemed as if all he had done was blink when he found himself standing in front of the white, ivory-and-gold-trimmed doors. The pulses were nearly constant, and the pressure and pain indescribable.

_If I can get out, I can maybe get help._

But there was no handle, no hinge, no keyhole in the pristine doors. Riku leveled the keyblade at the doors, and the magics of the Blade of Keys awoke. Deep indigo light burst forth from the tip. A crack between the doors appeared, and then the doors were flung open before him as a gigantic wave of force hurled him through the opening. The pressure against him faded away.

He found himself floating in the starry void, the abandoned and wasted monstrosity of a ship a few hundred yards away. Try as he might, he could make out nothing else. Nowhere were the doors he had come through, though he could still feel the [b]Pulses[/b], slowing in frequency now. Deeper in himself, he felt the bonds to the other worlds. He could only barely sense them now, comforted, contented. Riku felt himself drifting toward one of the bonds, and it responded with something that felt inexplicably high-pitched and warm.

Then he was touching the bond, and he felt himself stretched, his skin burning. He was very familiar with this sense of motion. With a practiced effort, Riku drew the darkness around himself like a shield, and the burning andstretching feeling disappeared, replaced with the cool indifference of the space between worlds. The bond he was riding in burbled, and Riku felt its confusion before the world approached him. He burst out of his cocoon of darkness as the bond terminated, then stepped out into the gallery of chalk-filled drawings in the hidden cave of Destiny Islands.


	2. Chapter 2

Riku looked around the small cavern, every inch covered in small chalk drawings that he and Sora and Kairi had made.

_I'm home._

He felt the joy and relief of being somewhere he belonged. The gentle lap of waves against the sand just a few feet away steadied his breathing, the smell of the salt and moss easing the pain and tension off of him. Here, at last, he had a chance to pause, to think.

He walked to the large rock and sat down, looking back at his entrance point. The strange wooden door was there, right in the wall of the cave. Its giant open keyhole glowed with barely visible light, the light of the heart of the world.

The King was dead, probably. Riku always started with his failures. King Mickey had been a better fighter, but he had succumbed to the massive army that had assaulted them while Riku had survived. It didn't make sense; he should have been the one to perish. The King had subjects to rule. He had earned his keyblade. Riku looked down at the golden key that he couldn't force himself to put down. The last time he'd held a keyblade, he had given into the darkness, the fear of losing Kairi and the anger of losing her to Sora. The resulting black blade had been twisted by his darkness, but it was still not enough. Sora had taken it back almost comically fast.

This new keyblade had not come to him of its own accord; he had picked it up on the battlefield. He was afraid that the blade would leave him if he set it down. He didn't want to be powerless again.

The battle against those heartless—what was the point? Why did the King die? Were they after the heart of Kingdom Hearts? Perhaps that strange orb? Or were they after the keyblade? Dozens of questions, and no answers.

Riku took a deep breath of the salty sea air and damp moss, and it cleared his head.

If they were after the orb, then it might be the heart of Kingdom Hearts. But why did the heart pulse like that?

Riku's train of thought stumbled and crashed on that question. Of course the heart had a pulse—it was a heart! But what, then, was it pumping? That must have been that pressure he'd felt. That squeezing feeling, the pain, and the ideas. Ideas and pressure—whatever they were, they nourished the bonds that led to the worlds. Riku felt another **Pulse**, like a second slower heartbeat, and the keyhole in the door glowed brightly for a second before dimming again.

The connection to the heart of this world had also reacted to the pulse. So the hearts were connected, probably through the bonds, tying all of the worlds together through Kingdom Hearts.

But why would falling through the heart make him feel the pulses still? Was he corrupted in some way, like he had been corrupted by the darkness? They were not fading in intensity, and his connection to the bond wasn't either. No answer presented itself to him there.

He wondered if Sora and Kairi had made it back to the Islands. They didn't travel the space between worlds like he did, and he grew concerned that they might have become stuck.

He crawled through the tunnel, now a far snugger fit than it had been when he last went through it.

The dawn was just breaking as he emerged to see the beach.

Home.

The sunrise above the water of his home brought him a measure of peace. He had gone and seen the other worlds, as he had always wanted, but it had all gone wrong.

Kairi had lost her heart. Riku had been tricked first by Maleficent, and then by Ansem. And Sora, his friend, his rival, had fixed it all; locking all the worlds away, stopping the heartless, redeeming him, saving Kairi. And in doing so, Sora had won her, thoroughly and completely.

He didn't find Sora or Kairi. Selphie had said Kairi was around for a day before disappearing, a note left saying she had gone to find Sora. The odd thing was that they all thought Riku had been gone for a few weeks—he was certain it had been many months since he had left the dying world.

Sora must have done something to restore the world to how it was before Ansem had destroyed it.

Tidus and Wakka had asked him question after question about where he had been, where Sora was, what he had seen, what cool fights he had been in, and anything else they could think of. Riku didn't want to talk about his failures, his trust in the wrong people, or the damage he had done to Sora, but he couldn't be dark and brooding on the beach of his home with his friends. Not for longer than a day or two.

So Riku told them about the streets of Traverse Town, the strange living dolls with puff balls that could forge the greatest of wonders. He told them of Leon and his ship building. The perpetually dark Halloween Town, the endless desert of Agrabah, his barely won fight against Sephiroth (he downplayed the massive luck that had gone into that catastrophe) in the Coliseum. All the good highlights of his otherwise disastrous adventures. The stories continued long into the nights, and Riku felt himself falling back into his old patterns around his friends.

Of course all three wanted fighting lessons from him, Tidus especially, and Riku felt real joy from battle for the first time since he had left the island. The wooden sword was clumsy in his hand after the keyblade. He had finally put it down, confident that if it was going to leave, it would have done so already. His friends' spars were no challenge to him, and so he entertained himself by going for the fancy, flashy dodges and leaping attacks. Riku was among friends again, and it felt good.

Late at night, a few weeks after he had arrived, the soft murmurs of happiness from the bond became distorted, warbling up and down before fading into a discordant hum.

Riku, keyblade in hand, found himself before the door to the other worlds, unsure why he was so concerned. He looked into the keyhole and the bond, and some other presence, reached out to him.

"What's wrong?" he started to ask, before he felt a pull and was suddenly engulfed by a squeezing, burning sensation. Riku wrapped the darkness around himself as he was pushed along the bond. Concern hit him in waves, and he felt a second bond, bloated with ideas and pressure, sending him bursts of fear and worry. "Fine, I get it, something is wrong. Tell me what it is!"

The burdened bond gave a harsh, high-pitched vibration, but Riku couldn't make sense of it. Soon he lost contact with the bond that had taken him home, and he was left with only its heavy cousin.

It spat him out in a torchlit cavern. The stone architecture and sandy corners told Riku he was in Agrabah. The bond here was ponderous and bellowed its fear and urgency. Riku looked around, trying to find the danger. The keyhole was locked, there were no echoes of battle, and Riku did not see or hear any concealed assailants. Minutes ticked by, with the urgency growing louder.

"Shut up! I know something's wrong, but you aren't telling me what you want!"

The bond seemed to quiet, but no answer came. Riku moved briskly through the caves, finding nothing amiss. The only other place that could be of interest was the City of Agrabah itself.

Riku pulled the darkness around himself and focused on the gates of Agrabah, letting the shadows call to each other before he stepped forward, disappearing into the shadow of the cave and reappearing in the shadow of the Agrabah city gates. He walked through the empty streets toward the loud commotion coming from the palace. He emerged from the market into a packed palace square. The crowd was cheering, throwing flower petals and paper scraps in the air, while a band belted out an accompanying tune.

"Big party," Riku commented, but he was drowned out by the noise.

Looking up, he saw the sultan standing on the roof overlooking the square, the Princess of Heart and Sora's friend Aladdin dressed in white, staring at each other like they were the only two people in the world. The sultan was saying something, but Riku could hear nothing over the din of the crowd. The bond's fear melted into despondency and sorrow.

Riku wondered if the bond didn't like parties before turning his attention to the princess and Aladdin. Was the bond upset with them? The music swelled and the two bent forward to kiss each other.

Just before their lips touched, the world became a void.

The palace vanished into a great sea of whiteness. But there were no screams, no cries. The people seemed to not even see what was happening. The bond's despondency collapsed into grief and pain.

Riku was too busy to notice. He focused on staying ahead of the whiteness, but it was gaining on him. There wasn't enough time to shadow portal, and so he ran, fleeing through the city. The gates of the city were in sight before they too vanished in whiteness.

He was engulfed. All around him was white, and the bond wailed in grief.


	3. Chapter 3

Suddenly he was standing in the street, people moving and bustling around him.

"Hello, young man! I have just the thing for you! A combination hookah and coffeemaker!"

Riku blinked in surprise at the small, turbaned man thrusting some green tube thing at him.

"No thanks," Riku said, confused, and started making his way through the crowd.

"What the hell happened?" he asked passersby. " Where is the huge party?" But they gave him odd looks and backed away. Questions without answers flitted through Riku's mind as he approached the palace. He heard the sound of someone hurtling through the air towards him, and jumped left, just barely getting out of the way before the man rolled and started running past him.

"Sorry!" the man called as he turned back, and Riku was surprised to recognize Aladdin, wearing some patchy purple vest and covered in dirt. Very, very different from the clean and well-dressed prince he had had seen on the ramparts just minutes ago.

"Catch him!" That was assuredly the palace guards chasing after him. With swords drawn, no less.

A yelp, a crash, and Aladdin was off. But the unmistakable staccato of a staff on stone had Riku chasing after the thief and guards as well.

"Unhand the princess!" Riku heard one of the guards shout. He turned the corner to see Aladdin and the Princess of Heart helping each other stand up. But where was the staff?

"I order you to leave," the princess shouted back at the guard, her poise and aggressive stance making him back up.

"Princess? I—"

"I order you to arrest him," a tall, dark man said, stepping forward, his staff making a distinct and familiar click as it hit the stone of the road.

"But sir—"

Another click of the staff cut off the guard's insubordination. "Don't question me. Arrest him, and take the princess back to the palace, where it's safe."

Someone from Maleficent's group kidnapping a Princess of Heart. Overcome with shame and pain, Riku charged forward to take out his negativity on the vizier. "Like hell!" he shouted, coming in high to lop off the bastard's head, his keyblade materializing in his hand mid-slash.

Jafar raised his staff and Riku saw the flanged head of the snake, its eyes glowing yellow.

"Wake up."

Riku blinked and found his hand bound with chain. Stone, darkness, chains, and an excruciating headache. How did he end in a prison?

"Hey, you're up. Thanks for trying to help back there. I'm Aladdin, what's your name?"

Riku sat up. He spotted a third prisoner, an old man, apparently sleeping. Of all of them, Riku was the only one chained.

"Riku. What happened?" he asked Sora's friend.

"Well, the tall guy shoved his staff in your face and told you to sleep. You sort of stood still then, and then he got this scowl look on his face and knocked you over the head with the staff, while the guards took me. I have to get out here, though, because the guards are going to take my hands." Aladdin's usual calm, blasé attitude was tinged with a hint of worry as he looked at his wrists.

"Oh? I can help you get out. But I'll want something in return." The old man, who apparently wasn't sleeping, rolled over to look at them, the rags he wore doing little to hide his spotted and flabby skin.

Riku was disgusted by his appearance, but Aladdin didn't seem to mind. "Yeah? You know a way out?" the thief asked, hope radiating visibly out of him.

"Yes, yes. But you have to promise you'll help me. You'll be well rewarded: I want to raid a cave of treasure and need a strong back to carry it. Will you promise?"

"I promise." Aladdin jumped at the opportunity, and Riku winced.

_"Do you promise to help me, Riku? If you help me, I can help you get Kairi's heart back."__"I promise."_

"And my friend Riku, too. He has to get out of here as well; they're going to execute him for trying to kill Jafar. He can carry stuff too."

Riku didn't think he was imagining the look of anger on the old man's face, but he was certain that the hesitancy was real. "We won't be able to escape if there are more than two of us. Now come on, boy, we'll get out of here and then you can help me. And besides, the more people, the less treasure we each get."

Riku stood up and summoned the keyblade. A slight twist, and the chains fell from his wrists. "I'm coming with you. You guys can keep the treasure. I'm not interested" _Maybe if I stick with Aladdin I'll understand what the bond was trying to tell me._

The old man grumbled something, but opened the secret passage out of the jail and into the city streets.

"It's just this way." The old man lead the two of them through the desert night. Riku had a sinking feeling that they were headed to the trap-infested Cave of Wonders, which only deepened when he saw the dead end canyon they were walking into.

"Behold, the Cave of Wonders." The old man gestured, and from him shot forth two golden lights that merged to form the eyes of the Cave. "Find me the lamp in there, and everything else is yours. It should be in the deepest section of the cave."

Everything about the old man was shady to Riku, but considering they were raiding a treasure cave, that wasn't surprising. He and Aladdin approached the cave, which belted out a message in a deep voice.

"Only a diamond in the rough may enter," it bellowed.

Both Riku and Aladdin looked back at the old man, who just waved them on and called out, "Hurry up!"

"I don't trust that old man," Riku said to Aladdin, who looked at him and nodded. The two of them entered the cave, and stepped down onto the second stair. Thankfully, nothing happened, and the two continued down.

"Huh. I have the strangest feeling of deja vu. I think I've been here before," Aladdin said to Riku as they passed hundreds of gold coins and jewels, pursued at some distance by a flying carpet. Riku looked at Aladdin, remembering the fight between Jafar and Aladdin he had heard of from Maleficent's spies.

"Maybe it's because you have been here," Riku said, as the thief grabbed his pet monkey away from shiny gems. Aladdin looked at him in confusion, before shaking his head and hurrying on.

It didn't take long until they reached the central chamber, and Riku was unsurprised to see that everything was as he had left it, the closed keyhole staring at him. Aladdin continued on down a side passage, but Riku felt the bond calling out to him.

He placed his hand on the keyhole. The bond was grieving, its weight bulbous and bloated and painful.

"I want to help, but you haven't told me how to do it."

The bond seemed to react to him, a hiccup in the grief, punctuated with a wail of pain. It seemed desperate to tell him something, something important, something now. But Riku wasn't able to figure it out.

The cave began shaking violently, and Aladdin came tearing out of the chamber on the back of the carpet. "Hop on!" he called out to Riku. "The cave is collapsing!" Riku ran alongside the carpet for a moment before jumping.

The carpet zigged and zagged around falling sand and pillars, and finally the night sky was visible in the distance, the old man holding a hand out to them. "Hurry!" he called out to them.

The carpet dodged around a falling pillar and ducked down to miss a large column when a rock hidden caught it right in the middle. Just when they were almost there.

Aladdin, at the front, jumped forward and scrambled onto the edge of the ledge to the exit, and the carpet launched Riku forward. He careened past the old man, and rolled to a stop.

Riku righted himself and ran back to the cave mouth, where the old man fought with Aladdin's monkey with one hand and swung a wicked dagger about with the other. "Out of my way!" Riku shouted at the old man, and dove to the ledge to reach for Aladdin's grasping fingers.

It was too late. The old man screeched as the monkey bit him and fell backwards, dislodging the animal as Aladdin fell from the ledge. Riku reached, but his arm was too short, too slow to reach the thief as he tumbled into the darkness. Riku had to scramble back as the ledge collapsed and the whole Cave of Wonders collapsed into sand.

"No! Noooo!" the old man was shouting, and Riku turned his gaze upon their backstabbing benefactor.

"You won't have to worry about rabies. I'm going to end you right now," Riku growled out, summoning up the keyblade.

"I'd like to see you try, boy." The old man's voice became the suave tones of Jafar as the magical disguise melted off of the vizier.

"Jafar. I should have known. You're going to pay for killing Aladdin, and for trying to kidnap the Princess of Heart." Riku charged forward, the keyblade ringing off of Jafar's staff.

"Perspicacious, aren't you, boy? I don't know you, but you certainly seem to know me. Ha!" A blast of green fire flared from the head of the staff, and Riku rolled to extinguish the flames from his clothes. He fired back with dark fire, but Jafar deflected some the black bolts with his staff. The others impacted against his robes, burning and buffeting the sorcerer, who used his staff to keep himself upright.

"Enough!" Jafar cawed and thrust his staff into the ground, the shockwave of magic tossing Riku back. The keyblade wielder rolled with the fall and jumped onto his feet, but Jafar was nowhere to be seen.

Riku was about to create a portal back down into the Cave when a rocket burst forth from the sand, with Aladdin and Abu and the stalker carpet clinging tightly to it as it went over the horizon. Seeing that the only place of interest was Agrabah, Riku focused on the city walls and melted through the shadow of a sand dune.

In the city, Riku sat on a rooftop and thought about the bond. The sky was filled with the gentle predawn light, and Riku watched as the stars vanished one by one in the sun's brilliance. Why had the bond brought him here? Where was the problem? And how did that problem manifest as the void of white?

Riku was startled out of his thoughts by a cacophony of sound coming from the main street of the city. He saw swarms of people flooding toward the main thoroughfare, and joined in with the crowd on the ground to see what the occasion was.

"Make Way! For Prince Ali!" thunderous chorus of singers shouted as one, as a parade more ostentatious than Riku had ever seen marched through town. Men passed by with swords, bells, animals, gold, and jewelry, a seemingly never-ending stream of people and wealth, before Riku caught sight of the Prince himself. Standing on an elephant was none other than Aladdin, in the same robes he wore at his wedding. Aladdin was the great Prince Ali, the one with all the jewels, the gold, the animals, the dancers, the women, and the wealth.

Riku felt a stab of jealousy. How had he gotten all of it? He had been a thief in jail last night, and now he was wealthy beyond anything Riku had seen before. Riku had said he hadn't wanted the treasure, but seeing all of the wealth made him upset with his choice. He had to ask Aladdin, had to find out how he had gotten all of it.

_Sora got the keyblade, and Kairi, and the chance to be hero. Aladdin gets wealth and to be a prince. What do I have? It's not fair._

He followed the march along, intent on questioning Aladdin as soon as he could get the prince alone. There didn't seem to be any bodyguards, save the giant elephant, so Riku felt confident in his ability to get through.

He stalked the prince through the streets and into the palace, where he took up a position in the shadows as Aladdin and Jafar danced around each other to win the Sultan's favor. Finally, finally, Aladdin went off alone, and Riku trailed after him, flitting from shadow to shadow to avoid the palace guards, before he finally saw Aladdin go into his own room. Riku followed after.

"Hey, Aladdin," he called out, causing the thief to jump in surprise.

"Riku!" he turned around, naming his partner in crime. "What are you doing here? If Jafar or the guards catch you they'll kill you for sure!"

Riku smirked. "I'd like to see them try. Jafar is scared of me, and the palace guards aren't that strong."

"Yeah, well, you getting caught in my rooms will be enough for Jafar to have me executed, and I can't fight off a dozen palace guards at once. Come back tonight and we can talk. I've got to go see Jasmine." With that, Aladdin strolled out, and Riku, still upset, walked through a portal back to the city to get some sleep.

It was already well past noon the next day when Riku awoke. _I must have been more tired than I thought. _He stretched his legs headed toward the palace at a light jog.

"Did you hear about Jafar?" One gaggle of merchants and shoppers seemed intent in conversation, and the dropped name caused Riku to divert his jog. "They say the new prince exposed him as evil; he was controlling the sultan!" Gasps and shouts of outrage greeted that statement, and Riku's respect for Aladdin rose a notch. Now finally awake, he took a side alley and shadowed back into the palace. He noted a bird flying out a window, a lamp clutched firmly in its talons. _A lamp? Wasn't that what the old man—no, Jafar—wanted? And didn't he have a pet bird?_Riku ran out to the window, but the bird had disappeared.

"Riku! Hey, good to see you. You're free now. Since Jafar was a bad guy, you're off the hook for trying to kill him. The sultan actually wants to give you a reward for trying to stop him!" Aladdin said. "Come on, I want you to meet Jasmine." _Aladdin must really not have a lot of friends if he's doing so much for me,_Riku thought, as he walked along with Aladdin through the palace corridors.

"So, how did you get all the money for all that stuff?" Riku asked.

"I wished to be a prince, everything else came with. Apparently it's one of the better wishes."

_Genie, he has to be using Genie. When Sora used Genie, he didn't seem powerful enough to create all that stuff. Maybe Genie has more power over this world._

The two of them entered the throne room, and Riku saw the Princess of Heart and the sultan. The princess looked at him quizzically, as if trying to place him, before shaking her head. "Ah, Riku, Prince Ali has told me so much about you."

The sultan chuckled from his posh seat. Riku bowed, and that seemed to please the sultan more. "You tried to defend him from my former vizier, and for that I want to give you my thanks." He clapped his hands, and a servant approached with a pillow, but Riku was too busy looking behind the servant at Jafar, who had slunk out of the hallway's shadows.

"Ah, Riku, so good to see you again." Riku's keyblade appeared in hand, and Aladdin jumped between Jasmine and the sorcerer. "Do you know what is most sweet? Stealing from a thief." Jafar held out his hand, and a lamp dropped from the multicolored bird that Riku had seen earlier. _Dammit. How could I have forgotten about that_?

Aladdin patted his pockets, but it was true, the lamp was now in Jafar's hands. A brief rub on the outside, and blue mist erupted from the room.

"Hey Al! How's it...oh." The bearded blue genie's shoulders sagged as he saw who now held his lamp.

"Genie, for my first wish, I wish to be the most powerful sorcerer in the world!" Genie covered his eyes, even as Riku rushed forward, trying to stop Jafar before he got too far.

Then Riku was sent flying back, a wave of force impacting him from Jafar's new staff. The sorcerer's mad laughter echoed off the high ceilings as everyone else in the room became paralyzed with a wave of Jafar's hand.

"Genie, for my second wish, I wish to be sultan!" Another bolt of light. The sultan's robes vanished, and Jafar's red and black attire was replaced with ivory white. Another wave of his hand, and all of the people in the chamber bowed to him.

Riku struggled, and finally broke through the paralysis around him. "Too bad, Jafar. I'm going to end you." He ran forward, the keyblade held out.

"Genie! For my third wish…no. I'm going to settle this myself. Ha!" A wave of the staff and Riku blocked another wave of force, but he landed exactly where Jafar wanted him. A strike of the staff on the ground and the palace tiles stretched and broke. Riku found himself encased in stone. Though he struggled, he wasn't able to move through the stone cage.

"Hahaha!" Jafar crowed, and then began ripping into Aladdin, showing him to be a common thief, stripping him of his fancy clothes, and then smashing him and Riku together, before launching them into a tower. "So Long, Ex-Prince Ali!" he cackled, as the entire tower shuddered, and then launched itself like a rocket over the horizon.

Riku winced as he woke up, the stone cage shattered around him. The bruises on his body and dent on the tower wall indicated pretty clearly the cause of his new found freedom. The building shuddered and started rolling, Riku still in it.

He scrambled for the window and jumped, his fingers just barely catching the edge as he pulled himself up and out. He stood up, and saw that the tower was in free fall down a cliff. Aladdin held a hand out toward him from the cliff's edge, and Riku jumped, but it was too late. The hand was just two feet too high. Desperate, Riku thrust his hand forward, summoning the keyblade as he did so. The blade caught in the rock, and Riku hung from it, just a few feet from the cliff. Swinging himself up, he grasped Aladdin's hand, finally making it to the safety of the clifftop.

"We have to go back and stop him," Aladdin called out, before hopping on the carpet, the snow and wind tossing his hair about.

_Snow? Where the hell are we? I don't remember this part of the world at all._

"I'll meet you there." Riku felt the shadow of the cliff and focused on the throne room. He stepped out of the freezer into the sauna. Red tapestries and hundreds of sconces and braziers made the palace too warm, even by Riku's sunbaked island standards.

The throne room was mostly empty, and so Riku wandered about on his hunt for Jafar, avoiding the palace guards, who didn't seem to mind the change in décor.

He found the new sultan running his hands all over the Princess of Heart. The former Sultan was in a box, being stuffed full of crackers by Jafar's bird.

"Hello, Riku, why don't you come in?" The sorcerer laughed and yanked hard with his staff, pulling Riku and some of the tapestry he had been hiding behind forward to land at his feet. "You have been a rather surprising annoyance to me. You never quite get in the way of my plans, but instead go after me. I must say I thank you for that, for I am far more durable." The sorcerer struck his staff against the ground, and Riku jumped away as he felt the floor start to respond.

"This is your end, Jafar," he called down, punctuating his words with blasts of dark fire.

"You can't kill me! I'm the most powerful being in the world!" Jafar batted away the fire effortlessly, turning it back at Riku.

Riku summoned the keyblade and deflected the bolts, scaring away Iago and shaking the former sultan's cage, then landed and rushed in, bringing his keyblade up and attacking forcefully. He never let Jafar get distance, though the sorcerer's staff blocked most of the keyblade wielder's blows. A few did get through, and cutting into Jafar's white robes. Riku, however, was not faring nearly as well. The green fire and lightning that Jafar summoned had burned his clothes badly, and the skin underneath was red and blistering from the heat. His nerves kept up a steady chorus of _Pain!_

Jafar thrust his staff forward and Riku ducked, but left himself open to Jafar's other hand, which brought down a torrent of fire upon him.

"Agh!" Jafar cried, as a deep slice appeared on his back. Aladdin had finally arrived. "Damn you, street rat!" Jafar hissed, even as Aladdin sped away to rescue the princess. His victory was short-lived: even as Aladdin saved her, she was trapped again, this time in an hourglass, sand pouring from the top compartment down onto her.

"You better hurry Aladdin; time is running out for your pretty princess." Jafar cackled, as he waved his arms, summoning more green fire.

"Don't forget about me!" Riku called, his left arm blackened by the torrent of fire, as he struck the keyblade at Jafar's side. Caught between Aladdin's sword and Riku's keyblade, the sorcerer did his best to deflect both, and tossed Aladdin aside with a gesture.

"You two don't understand my power! I am the most powerful man in the weird."

"No you aren't!" Aladdin called back, slashing his sword to deflect more fire away. "The Genie is more powerful than you'll ever be!" Riku jumped forward and slashed, scoring a light scratch on the sorcerer and jumping away again. Jafar held a hand over the wound, hissing in pain. "Genie!" the sorcerer shouted. "For my third wish! I wish to be an all-powerful Genie!"

"Great going, Aladdin!" Riku shouted in anger. How the hell were they supposed to fight a Genie? Jafar's visage reddened to a brick red color, and his sultan robes fell away to reveal a broad chest and massive muscles.

"Yes! Yes! I am all powerful!" He cackled as he grew in size. Riku winced, before jumping up and trying to stab the red genie. His blade passed right through, and Riku struggled to find a solution. He threw a few bolts of dark fire, but those Jafar ignored, and they bounced off of his skin. Jafar brought a hand out to slap Riku, and despite using the keyblade to deflect the blow, the impact sent him flying into a pillar. Riku gasped, his back a fire of pain, as the pillar dented.

"With an itty bitty living space!" Aladdin called out, and Riku and Jafar both turned to look at the thief, who held up a black lamp.

Immediately, Jafar started shrinking, growing smaller and smaller and being drawn into the lamp. "No! Noooooo!" He tried to dig his hands into the ground, but they gave him no purchase, and he was sucked faster and faster until all they heard was a quiet "no" from the mouth of the lamp, then silence.

Riku got up using the keyblade for balance, and walked over to Aladdin, who smashed the glass on the hourglass, freeing the Princess of Heart.

Riku felt odd in the clothes the sultan had given him. The white and blues were fine, but the billowing long sleeves and several layers felt weird compared to his clothes from home. However, as both the sultan's and Aladdin's guest of honor, it was expected. Aladdin and Jasmine didn't seem to care; they were blissfully ignorant to everything outside of each other. Riku's left arm still burned from the fire Jafar had flung at him, the palace doctor promising "extensive treatment" later that night.

Riku followed Aladdin as a guest of honor to the wedding, and felt apprehension seep into him as the wedding process proceeded.

_This is where the burst of whiteness originated. At this very wedding. Is it going to happen again?_The bond screamed in his veins, and Riku shuddered.

"Are you alright, my boy?" the Sultan asked, concern on the old man's face.

Riku shook himself. "Yeah, I'm—" Just then, Aladdin leaned down to kiss Jasmine, and the whiteness burst forth from them, engulfing Riku before he even had a chance to react.

The whiteness lasted much longer this time, and Riku was able to feel the character of this place. There was a great pressure, a pushing on him from all sides. A distant scream, and the whiteness was gone. He was back, standing on the parapets of the palace wall.

"Stop! Trespasser!" A voice shouted behind him, and Riku saw several palace guards rush towards him, swords drawn.

"Arrest him!" The guard with the fancier outfit shouted, thrusting his sword toward Riku, telegraphing his intent for a painful arrest.

Riku didn't bother saying anything, just ran along the walls, focused on a patch of shadow. The palace guards were much slower than the whiteness, and so Riku had plenty of time to focus on the darkness as he ran into the shadow of the parapet and out of a shadowy alley in the main city.

He leaned back against the cool stone, and banged the back of his head hard against the wall.

"Dammit."


	4. Chapter 4

Riku heard the palace guard shout "Catch him!" and was unsurprised to see Aladdin run right by his little alleyway, the Princess of Heart in tow, followed by the palace guards. Behind him, paralleling the group, Riku heard the click of staff on stone, and saw Jafar rushing after the boy, muttering under his breath about a diamond.

Riku followed at a distance, and saw the scene he had been in not a few days ago repeat itself, word for word. Aladdin was arrested and Jasmine taken back to the palace, all followed by Jafar, the clack of staff on stone.

_None of this makes any sense_.

Riku sat on the rooftop, looking down over the city, trying to understand, wincing at the pain in his arm.  
_The bond sent me here to fix something. And that whiteness is either the symptom or the cause of the problem. If it is the cause, then it comes from Aladdin and Jasmine. Is their marriage the problem? If Aladdin is supposed to die in the cave, or in the prison, or fighting Jafar, then there wouldn't be a marriage. I can stop that. Between me and Jafar, Aladdin wouldn't stand a chance._

Working with Jafar, though, sent a wave of nausea through Riku. Could he do it? To save some bond that he didn't understand, could he kill Sora's friend?

Probably. But not if it helped Jafar. So the whiteness wasn't a cause, it was a symptom. What was a symptom of? And in a flash it came to him. _The pressure was just like Kingdom Hearts!_

Riku stepped out of the portal, his mind clear on his goal. He was surprised, though, to see that the Cave of Wonders' chamber was not empty.

"Who are you? How did you get in here?" Aladdin asked of the keyblade wielder, surprise but no fear evident in the young thief's countenance.

Riku shrugged. Repetition sucked. "Riku. I can get into places pretty easily."

"Aladdin. Nice to see someone alive down here. Are you here for the treasure?" Aladdin relaxed, extending a hand to shake.

Riku smiled and shook the thief's hand. "No, I've got something else to do. The lamp is that way." Riku pointed down the hall, away from the keyhole, toward the lamp chamber.

"How did you—?"

"Don't you have a lamp to get?" Riku cut Aladdin off. _Get going already. This between-worlds stuff is supposed to be secret._

"Right, I'll talk to you later," Aladdin said, and picked up Abu before the monkey grabbed hold of a large diamond. "Not yet, Abu." The thief and his pet disappeared around the corner, and Riku strolled up to the keyhole, sealed shut with Sora's magic.

Riku raised the keyblade, pointing it at the keyhole, and a tip of light emerged from the golden key, right through the middle of the keyhole. Riku twisted the keyblade, and there was a loud click before the stony center fell away, revealing the endless void of the keyhole with a pinprick of light in the center.

Riku felt a rush, and the world became thinner, lighter, as if there were a torrent of thoughts and ideas and pressure that went from the world into the keyhole. The pinprick of light **Pulsed**, and Riku felt the bond clearly. He had an odd sensation of falling, like part of him was being subsumed wholly into the bond, and then the bond spoke to him.

"Thank you." The voice was deep, so deep Riku did not hear it, but felt it throughout his whole body.

The pinprick of light **Pulsed**again, and then again, faster and faster, ending at a stable beat, exactly in time with the beat of Kingdom Hearts. And then the whole cavern began to shake.

"Abu!" Riku heard Aladdin's shout from around the corner, and the cavern shook again.

Riku stepped back from the keyhole as Aladdin rushed toward him on the flying carpet. "Quick! Get on!" With the cavern shaking, Riku didn't want to risk shadow hopping; who knew where he'd end up trying to get through an unstable shadow. He jumped onto the back of the carpet.

"Thanks. You get the lamp?" The carpet jerked and dove, and Riku clung to the fabric.

"Yeah. So what were you doing back there?" Aladdin asked, gripping with two hands on the corners of the carpet, keeping himself low.

Riku couldn't suppress a smirk. He had done something Sora hadn't. He had protected this world. He had been the hero, even if no one else knew.

Riku held loosely to the carpet, wincing at the pain. Healing magic might hurt like hell, but at least it fixed the problem. He rolled up his sleeve, seeing that the burn from Jafar was getting worse, not better. Once they got out he'd have to see a doctor about it.

Unfortunately for Riku, Aladdin had the right idea staying low on the carpet, and Riku wasn't able to dodge the falling sandstone. The hit dislodged him from the carpet, and his arm was agony as he used all of his will to squeeze the carpet, hoping to get out alive.

"Riku!" Aladdin called back, as the carpet was pinned by another rock. It propelled Aladdin forward and he caught on to the ledge, while Riku fell back into the abyss.

"…liiiiiiike meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Riku blearily woke to the sight of Genie doing some odd dance, while Aladdin and Abu watched with slacked jaws. All three turned to look at him as he pushed off the rocks obscuring him.

"Riku! You're okay!" Aladdin called out.

"Yeah. Ow."

"It's too bad this genie here can't heal you and get us out of here. He's too weak."

"What?" Riku asked in confusion, as the genie simultaneously shouted indignation.

"Yeah. He says he can grant me almost any wish, but I don't even think he can do those two things." Aladdin said with that confident swagger.

"You do know he's the most powerful being in the world, right?" Riku asked, not getting what Aladdin was playing at.

"You bought it too? He's just a windbag," Aladdin smirked.

"Windbag? WINDBAG! I'll show you windbag!" They were all engulfed in a blue light. "Prepare for liftoff." The genie's voice echoed all around them, as Riku found himself holding on to the side of a rocket, surprisingly without any pain from the broken rib or concussion from the fall, nor the burns from Jafar's magic. There was just a rapidly fading excruciating pain of all of his wounds rapidly healing.

And then Riku, Abu, and Aladdin screamed as the feeling of liftoff accelerated them out of the cave.

"Remind me why I'm doing this again?" Riku asked as he walked in front of Abu-in-elephant-form.

"Because Genie said a prince needs a Bodyguard. And don't you want to see the palace? It's supposed to be beautiful. And the princess is there." Aladdin got the dreamy stare, and for all intents and purposes vacated the premises.

_Well, really, I've never been in a parade before; it should be kind of fun. My own celebration for fixing this place._

The parade strutted through the center of town, with Aladdin showing off to the crowds while Riku strolled in front, knowing that if they knew, they would be doing the same for him.

"You know, Genie's right. You really should tell her the truth."

"What would you know?" Aladdin countered.

Riku winced at the verbal barb. Kairi was still too sore a subject, it seemed. She and Sora were surely dating now, forever taking her out of Riku's reach. But it was alright. Sora might have saved the worlds from the heartless, but he had screwed up doing it, and it was Riku's job now to fix it.

Even though he told himself that over and over, he still felt something was missing.

Riku sat with the palace guard captain, wondering what the hell he was doing here, and why they wanted to talk to him.

"You say your name is Riku. For palace security, I'm going to need any other aliases and your full history."

Even Riku, who had believed Maleficent to be a good person, felt there was something else to this questioning. "What are you really after?" He answered back.

"Look, kid, you are really too young to be in this bodyguard business. How about this: I'm gonna offer you a job in the palace guards. We'll help train you, get you better. What do you say?" The guard captain smiled a crooked smile.

Riku was insulted. This captain, who had chased him twice in this world and had been so comically evaded, was offering him advice? "If you'd fought what I've fought, seen what I've seen, and been where I'd been, your job offer would make sense. But you haven't. The most dangerous thing you've seen is probably a mugger. I've fought ghosts of mad scientists; I've fought the Light itself. So please, don't think you have anything to teach me."

Riku got up and the captain looked at an hourglass, the sand almost gone. "Alright, well, just remember the offer's always open."

Riku shut the door without responding and heading back to Aladdin's suite of rooms. The bedsheets were all disheveled when he arrived, and Aladdin was nowhere to be found. Riku sighed. Apparently the thief wanted another late-night rendezvous with the princess. He yawned, and went to sleep.

The door banged open and a soaking wet Aladdin strolled into the room, smelling of fish and salt.

"Some bodyguard you are!" Aladdin shouted at Riku, who woke up blearily. What time was it? Why was it still dark outside?

"What? What happened?"

"Jafar had the palace guards kidnap me. They threw me into the ocean. If it wasn't for Genie, I would have drowned." Aladdin tossed off his soaked hat, a fish and the lamp falling out.

"I thought you had gone to the princess.." Riku trailed off, realizing what the guard captain had really been interested in. "Oh, that bastard."

"Yeah, well, obviously I wasn't with her at the beach," Aladdin cut back, but Riku had already displaced the blame onto the guard captain.

"I got drawn away by the guard captain, who wanted to do some security checks. It was obviously a distraction to get me away from you. I'll be right back."

Riku strolled into a shadow, emerging in the captain's office. The man was shouting at his guards. "How could you let him get away? The orders were clear! We were supposed to get rid of the fake prince so that the princess doesn't come to harm." The guards shook. One of them noticed Riku glaring at them from behind the captain, who hadn't yet noticed the keyblade wielder. The guard's eyes widened even more, and his trembling in fear became more pronounced. "You are all spineless cowards!" the captain roared. "Did you even tie a knot in the ropes? Or did you just wrap them and then get distracted by a passing butterfly?" But the guards were all looking past him at Riku.

"You all are nothing! Worthless!" The captain paused, noticing that his guards' attention was elsewhere. He turned, found Riku not two feet behind him, jumped, and shrieked.

Riku wondered what to say, all five of the guards still staring at him. Maleficent's admonishments not to let the darkness into his heart swam through his mind. His thoughts then flitted toward his betrayal of her, how he had opened his heart to darkness, and opened her heart, which she had kept so closed.  
"I'm declining your offer," he said, and walked past them through the door. Let them wonder how he got in.

Riku dove for the lamp that the red bird had stolen, but it was too late. He rolled from his dive as the bird flew overhead, the Genie's lamp dropping into Jafar's hands.

"Genie! For my first wish, I wish to be the most powerful sorcerer in the world!" It all happened just like before. Even knowing what was coming next, Riku was unable to get to the sorcerer, his dark fire deflected by a twirl of the staff before he too was forced into bowing before the new sultan. He and Aladdin were wrapped in the magic and sent careening off to that distant corner of the world.

"I am going to kill you!" Riku shouted, stepping out of a portal into Jafar's prisoner chamber.

"Ah, yes, the bodyguard. Your magic was most unexpected, and your swift return is surprising. How would you like to work for me?"

"I am not puppet for the darkness!" Riku shouted out.

_I am done working for evil! I am done working for darkness, for villains. I fight now to make my own name, and to save the worlds from the repetition that Sora trapped them in._

"And you are In! My! Way!" he jumped, deflected Jafar's green fire, and avoided the danger of the floor by constantly launching himself into the air before the ground could capture him. He didn't focus on flinging about fire, or keeping his distance. Jafar was weak up close; two duels had already shown Riku that.

Jafar was pressed, spinning his staff to deflect Riku's keyblade, throwing fire to push the boy away. But Riku dodged and ducked, even before Jafar had finished casting his spells.

"What sorcery is this, boy?" Jafar hissed out as Riku scored another hit. The sorcerer was bleeding now from several wounds, his arm hanging limp at his side, many of its tendons severed.

Riku didn't answer, but pressed his attack, always leaping high, jumping side to side, never letting himself rest on the floor to be trapped. His keyblade snapped out, cleaving off Jafar's arm. It fell to the floor, still clutching the staff.

Jafar hissed in pain, and the hiss expanded and deepened as the sorcerer changed his form to that of a giant snake. Fire launched from its hissing mouth, and Riku jumped out of the way.

_Okay, this is new._

Riku jumped onto the spine of the snake as the floor twisted. He ran up toward the head, intent on decapitating the transformed sorcerer. But he was surprised when the whole snake rolled and he found himself facing Jafar's face as a stream of fire launched forth. Riku jumped, but it was no use. He would miss the flames, but the teeth would catch him on the fall down. He readied his keyblade to try to minimize the damage. Maybe he would only lose an arm.

His descent was abruptly stopped as he felt his long shirt snagged by something. Looking up, he saw Aladdin grasping hold of the shirt, riding the carpet.

"You're lucky I've got great timing." The thief grinned, and Riku nodded. He shouldn't have over-committed to that attack. Aladdin helped him onto the carpet, which dodged and weaved to avoid the bursts of flame.

"He controls the ground," Riku said, before jumping off the carpet and hopping from pillar to pillar, slashing at the sections of snake that filled the room, coating the floor with the beast's blood as it thrashed. Aladdin struck from the air, the carpet dodging the fire as the thief cut Jafar's face and neck.

"Ha! You may be the most powerful sorcerer in the world, but you're still not all-powerful!" Riku taunted, as a cut of the keyblade exposed severed ribs to the air.

"Genie!" The snake called out, and Riku winced. Crap, is he going to wish for invulnerability? Dammit, Riku, why did you have to screw things up? "For my third wish, I wish to be an all-powerful genie!" The blue light struck, and instantly the wounds on the snake healed, even as the golden scales turned to a blood red skin. "Yes! Yesssss!" Jafar cackled as he grew in power.

"But you have a genie's weakness!" Aladdin called out, holding aloft the black lamp.

Riku stepped into the sun behind Aladdin, clean native clothes on him as he followed the thief. He would see the world move on from its repetition, and then it would be time for him to move on.

He hadn't made ten steps onto the parapet before a horrific scream cut through him, sending him pitching forward in sympathetic agony.

_**Help me!**_

A call, deep, echoing, and painful, rebounded in his skull.

The keyhole. Someone was messing with the bond. Dammit.

Riku got up, the pain fading as he shuffled forward, ignoring everyone's concern. They weren't important now. He stepped into a shadow, focusing on the keyhole.

"Riku!"

It was a voice Riku didn't want to hear, but he was really the only one who would be here, and Riku knew it. Did he even have a reason, or was stopping Riku enough?

"Sora. I thought I told you to take care of her." Riku admonished. _I know where it hurts you, Sora, because that's where it hurts me._

"I am. She's with the gummi ship. What are you doing here? Kairi said she could feel that there was a Princess of Heart in danger, that there was a keyhole open. We got here as fast as we could. You didn't...do anything, did you, Riku?" Sora asked, with that expression of futile hope.

"I opened the keyhole. The world was dying. It needed to be fed by Kingdom Hearts. Now get out of my way so I can open it back up." _And quickly! There are probably only a few more minutes before the reset happens again, and I don't know if relieving the pressure will be enough to prevent a reset with a closed keyhole._

"NO!" Sora jumped between Riku and the locked keyhole. "Then the heartless will come and eat this world!"

"Its better that they have a chance to fight instead of the alternative. The people here weren't living, Sora, they were just acting the same story out again and again. I don't know how many times the story repeated, but it must have been many." _Come on, I don't have a lot of time. Understand me!_

"Riku! You gave in to the darkness. It's tricking you! The keyholes have to stay closed! That way the heartless can't destroy the world, like they did to our home!"

"No, Sora. It's not the darkness, it's not Maleficent, it's my own thoughts. My own actions. I own my choices, Sora—don't take that away from me by saying they were someone else's. I lived through Kingdom Hearts, I have traveled the bonds between worlds, I understand how this universe works, and the keyholes must stay open." _Otherwise the bonds scream in pain, and pain is damage. They will break._

"Then I'll have to stop you. I'm sorry, Riku." Sora's ultima keyblade appeared in his hands. It was like he wasn't even listening.

"I'm going to beat you, Sora, and then I'm going to fix that keyhole."

Keyblades flashed against each other, and Riku had a better understanding of Jafar, as Sora charged forward heedlessly, swinging his keyblade like a maniac. Riku parried as best he could, and his few counterattacks were deflected by Sora's maelstrom.

Riku threw black fire, which Sora hastily attempted to deflect.

"Don't give into the darkness!" Sora called out, as he cast a cure on himself, healing the fairly mild burns.

"Out of my way!" shouted Riku, as he charged forward, flinging more black fire, driving Sora back and stabbing over and over again, the two keyblades a blur as they parried and bounced off of each other. Riku hopped back and blasted more dark fire, and Sora couldn't deflect it all.

"Is that all you've got?" Riku taunted. His rival was weak. Where was the self-assured confidence of doing the right thing? Maybe Riku's speech had gotten Sora to question his understanding after all.

Sora charged back in, his keyblade swinging and swinging, and Riku felt himself hard pressed to keep up. Blood stained Sora's keyblade, and Riku's side flamed in agony, but the set-up was complete.

"Riku!" Sora called out, trying to get his friend to stop.

"Time's up," Riku replied. This had gone on too long. He turned away from Sora, and faced the now-exposed keyhole. He pointed his keyblade at it, and the beam of light connected the two.

"No!" Sora jumped forward, but Riku's fire flung him back with concussive force. The keyhole clicked open.

_**Too close. Thank you.**_There was no doubt, he understood the bond more now, with each time he unlocked it.

Sora stood up, and raised his own keyblade to seal it closed again.

Riku's hand flared, and dark fire exploded against Sora, sending the young hero bouncing into a pillar, his keyblade clattering to a stop.

"No matter what you do Riku, Kairi and I will stop you. Every keyhole you open, we'll close. And once she gets here, you won't be able to beat both of us." Sora coughed, but grinned the cocksure grin that he wore every time he bested Riku. When he won a race, when he got Kairi to kiss him, when he showed off his keyblade. Every. Damn. Time.

"Not if I break it first." Riku gave his own grin, not as well practiced, but gleeful in its chance to usurp Sora's dominance.

Sora's eyes widened as Riku jumped, bringing his keyblade down upon the keyhole, severing it in two. There was a clash of light.

"Riku!" Two voices echoed. One was becoming tiresome. The other he didn't want to hear at all.

"What have you done?" Kairi shouted at him. Her keyblade was flowery, with a wicked edge at the end. She didn't carry it like a sword. More concerningly, she carried it like Sora did his. Had he been teaching her?

"I'm saving the worlds from the problem Sora started. The keyholes must stay open. If you two won't help me, then don't stop me, or I'll keep breaking them."

The wound in Riku's side ached. Sora had gone quite deep. Riku started feeling lightheaded, blood loss making it hard to concentrate.

"What are you talking about? You beat up your best friend, burning him, and then you open a keyhole, and then you BREAK the keyhole! And you want me to go along with this? Hell no!" Kairi held the keyblade in Sora's ready stance, anger and determination in her eyes.

_Can I fight her? No. I can barely defend with this wound, and I can't just blow her away with magic. I just can't fight her like Sora. She's...she's Kairi, and I love her too much._

"Kairi, the worlds are repeating—"

"No! I don't want to hear it, Riku! This is just some stupid attempt to get attention. You believed the first person you came across, and now you've gone and done something completely crazy! What's wrong with you? Didn't you learn the first time?"

"Yeah. That's why all of these are my decisions. There was no one giving me guidance. This is my choice. Goodbye. I hope you will come to understand." Riku clutched a hand to his side and fell back into the shadow of the pillar, then fled, cloaking himself in darkness as he sped along the bond toward another of the locked worlds.


End file.
